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Poetry
Advice to Children
Children, if you dare to think
Of the rareness, muchness
Fewness of this precious only
Endless world in which you say
You live, you think of things like this:
Gym showers full of boys and girls
Snapping towels, red welts on rears,
Refracted sun and polished glass,
And squirming ants consumed by flame,
The roll of dice (we call it craps)
And the give of cash held tight in
Hand (winnings won through guile and cheat),
And acrid smoke from stolen fags,
And ‘gateway drugs’ swinging wide
Straight on through to the other side.
Such treasures wait in small, zip locked
Bags, plastic keys to worlds unspied:
Take them, Children, make them your own!
For who dares undo the parcel
Finds themselves at once outside it:
Snapping towels and pinching rears
Burning ants and smoking smokes
Shooting craps and rolling joints
And buying bags of skag from friends
Instead of sitting alone and grim
With unwrapped parcels about your bed.
And if only then you should dare to think
Of the fewness, muchness, rareness,
Greatness of this endless only
Precious world in which you say
You live – it will be too late.